Set sail

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

On bad days

I want to sit in a dark, large, warm auditorium and listen to poetry. On a particularly bad day, a few years ago, I got to do just that. Billy Collins came to BYU and I found a seat. It was the best place for me and all my cement feelings. And it seems like the best place for me now, today. Not that today is particularly bad, but mostly just particularly taxing. A day when it seems like my veins are frayed and everything seems off—every action and thought is a dress that doesn't fit.

So I’ll invite you into small, quiet auditorium that I built myself. Let’s sit together and listen and not say a word.

At the reading I went to, Billy introduced a poem by saying, "If you are majoring in English, you are basically majoring in death. Death is our thing; it's what gets us up in the morning." I remember laughing out loud—because it’s true.